Have you seen this Fukushima child?
By Kim Kyung-Hoon
Near midnight on March 12th, 2011, I was looking for Fukushima evacuees who had fled from towns near the nuclear power plant hit by a massive tsunami and earthquake the day before, and was now leaking radiation.
On hearing the warnings of meltdown and radiation leaks at the nuclear plant, my colleagues and I drove west from Fukushima airport where we landed by helicopter with two very simple goals: stay as far away as possible from the nuclear power plant, and find the evacuees.
However, there was no clear information where to find the evacuees and how far away we had to stay from the nuclear plant to ensure our safety in the panicky and chaotic situation.
After asking around for several hours in Koriyama city in Fukushima Prefecture, we found out that all the evacuees were getting radiation checks before they could be admitted to evacuation centers. When we got to the makeshift inspection station, which was set up at Koriyama Sports Complex, what we encountered was more like a scene from a sci-fi movie. Officials in protective suits from head to toe were scanning the refugees to check whether they were radioactive.
The evacuees were standing in a long line waiting for the radiation test. What I saw in their eyes was terror and anger at their government’s inefficiencies. Several people who had been tested for radioactivity had been separated from the group and they were sitting on the ground with despairing and puzzled looks as they waited for decontamination.
In the long line of evacuees, I spotted a little girl brought by her mother.
Fukushima’s invisible fear
By Issei Kato
These days, a mask, protective clothing and radiation counter have all become a usual part of reporting trips, as essential as a camera, lenses and a laptop. Soon, this situation will have gone on for a full year.
The 20 km (12 mile) zone around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is now a virtual ghost town after being evacuated of residents due to radiation. I asked a friend, who was forced by the disaster to leave the area and has been searching for a way to resume work, for help, and was able to enter the area where he used to live.
The massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 triggered the world’s worst nuclear accident in 25 years and forced residents around the plant to flee, leaving behind in many cases their household belongings or pets. The triple whammy is still forcing more than 150,000 people from Fukushima prefecture to take refuge, nearly half of them from the no-go zone.
When entering the zone by car, I could see houses and shops destroyed by the earthquake. Traffic signals along the street were blinking yellow but there was no one around. Instead of residents, groups of cows which escaped from farms clopped along the street or in the gardens of houses. There was no sound of cars or people on a shopping street, only the noise of the wind and the bawling of cows.
Following a nuclear train
By Fabrizio Bensch
126 hours from La Hague to Gorleben; the longest ever nuclear waste transport from Germany to France
This is a retrospective on the past 10 years, during which I have covered the nuclear waste transportation from France to Germany many times. The German nuclear waste from power plants is transported in Castor (Cask for Storage and Transport of Radioactive material) containers by train to the northern German interim storage facility of Gorleben.
As the train came closer to its final destination, I would end up with only a few hours sleep, mile-long marches on foot through forests and fields and never-ending police checkpoints. But in the end each castor transport reached its intended destination.
Nuclear waste from German nuclear power plants was reprocessed at the French plant at La Hague. The train used to transport it was protected in Germany by up to 20,000 policemen. Each transportation was different, but the pictures each year were very similar. There were blockades on the railway tracks, activists chaining themselves to the tracks, peaceful and violent protests along the route and the waiting patiently for hours for the train to move further along.
Ukrainian photojournalist was beat in Donetsk by director of the stadium. Director have not punished for this. Help, please!
http://forum-vit.blogspot.com/2011/12/bl og-post_05.html
Shooting heat without getting sweaty
By Kai Pfaffenbach
The use of photographs showing global climate change, industries’ increasing emissions and its effect on our environment is growing rapidly.
Looking for different images Eastern Europe Chief Photographer Pawel Kopczynski came across thermal imaging technology and bought one of these cameras that shows different temperature levels. The camera was sent to my Frankfurt office with a short and easy job description: “Kai, play around with the camera and make good use of it”. After getting familiar with the technology (the first time ever in my career I had to read a 200 page manual) and taking a few silly shots of houses in the neighborhood I made up my mind to start a tour through southern Germany, shooting the nuclear and coal power plants of the region.
The thermal imaging camera is not comparable to a “normal” camera we use day to day. It looks a lot more like the radar guns that police use to catch speeding car drivers. To make it look even more strange you can use a laser pointer for better targeting. No wonder power plant security was after me within a minute as I stood on a street about 500 yards away from the nuclear power plant in Phillipsburg near Karlsruhe to get my first shots. After a few minutes of negotiations they realized I was not coming up with some rocket launching laser system. After crosschecking my passport and press-pass details they took me off their personal list of “terrorist suspects”.
I expected a huge visible difference between temperature inside one of the domes covering the nuclear heart of the power plant, and the outside. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the case and it looks like the massive concrete walls are doing their job.
Beefing up radiation checks
Since covering the Fukushima nuclear crisis in March, I have photographed various radiation scenes in the months that followed.
Starting with shocking scenes of people who were actually contaminated with radiation being cleansed and scenes of people being isolated into a building.
I covered many people who had possibly been exposed after their evacuation from areas near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. Imagining what it would be like to be in their shoes it was difficult to ask for permission but surprisingly, almost all the people allowed me to take pictures as a Geiger counter ticked beside them.
However, being friendly to the media didn’t mean that they were not worried.
I saw some photos on International Herald Tribune. I am so appreciate to have opportunity to see your photos and read your blog. These inspires me a lot and encourage myself to pursuit my future career as photojournalist.
Sincerely,
mkato
Back in the nuclear zone
Fukushima prefecture’s Kawauchi residents who evacuated from their village near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were allowed to return home briefly last Tuesday to pick up personal belongings. This was the first government-led operation for the evacuees.
Kawauchi village is one of the cities, towns and villages designated by the government in late April as a legally binding no-entry zone within a 20km (12 miles) radius of the plant.
Clad from head to toe in white protective suits, they got off the buses and received a screening test for signs of nuclear radiation at a village gymnasium after a two-hour trip inside the no-entry zone.
Each clutched a large plastic bag provided beforehand — a quota had been placed on the amount of belongings that could be salvaged. Most were filled with clothing but included photos and stuffed toy animals. Some residents salvaged bank statements or certifications of mutual aid association. I had the sense that the situation occurred suddenly and brought about unexpected change in their lives.
Some residents feared they may never be able to go back.
Cherry blossoms spring smiles in devastation
Even this year, cherry blossom season bloomed in Japan.
The lives of us Japanese have changed completely in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the constant fear of radiation following the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. So much so that we forgot the coming of spring.
I returned to cover the stricken area again at the beginning of April. The huge piles of debris that were visible immediately after the quake and tsunami were slowly being managed. Roads had appeared again and gradually I saw that there was a town.
The town which appeared was still a world of monotone. But light pink flowers, that elicit a feeling of excitement within all Japanese, appeared in the black and white world.
Those are muting but grow and blossom.
Please try Japanese flowers on tours and buy it’s products.
You can help Japan.
Japan’s nuclear crisis and my life
As a Reuters photographer, I have covered many disasters and incidents over the last ten years but these things had little direct affect on my life. Just like the saying: “The photographer must be taken out of the picture”, I was a third party in most of these cases. By and large, those catastrophes had nothing to do with my personal life. Once my assignment was over, I used to go back to my normal life and switch from emergency mode.
But last month’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in Japan was different. I am not exempt from the fear caused by the disaster nor am I immune to the threat of the invisible nuclear radiation.
Since I deployed to near Fukushima prefecture to cover the nuclear crisis story last month, two palm size radiation monitors have been added to my MUST-carry items along with my camera equipment. The first thing I have to do after waking up in the morning is not drink a cup of coffee but instead check the radiation level. The number on the device has been the main criteria on whether I can get out of the car once inside the 20km evacuation zone from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Regardless of the level of background radiation, our white protective suits were mandatory to wear inside the evacuation zone. I also stood in line to receive radiation screening with other evacuees at a radiation check-up point whenever I had the opportunity during my assignment.
Oh, I’m the person who wrote about the Hope Crane project.
I forgot to mention you can reach me at knityourpeace.com.
Thank you,
Kristin Bull Lyon
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A Week in Pictures, March 27, 2011
Japan continues to dominate the file from Asia with new photograhers rotating in to cover the twists and turns of this complex and tragic story. In a country were the nation rarely buries its dead, the site of mass graves is quite a shocking scene to behold. Holes the length of football pitches are dug in the ground with mechanical digggers and divided into individual plots by the military and are then filled with the coffins of the victims of the tsunami. Family members come to weep and pray over the graves. Some are namless and marked only with DNA details, others bear the names of the victims. There is not enough power or fuel to cremate the thousands of bodies that are being recovered from the disaster zone.
Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force carry a coffin of a victim of the earthquake and tsunami to be buried at a temporary mass grave site in Higashi-Matsushima, in Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan March 24, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
People who have either been made homeless by the tsunami or have fled the 30km exclusion zone around the stricken nuclear plant live out their lives in evacuation centres, not sure what the future will hold. There is a backdrop of growing concern over the radiation that is continuing to leak out into the atmosphere from the nuclear plants in Fukushima. Thousands of people are still unaccounted for, international help has arrived to help with the massive task of clearing up, industry is still crippled and the weather is poor. Next week, a school will reopen at a temporary site, 80% of the classes are either dead or missing. It is under these conditions our team of photographers continue to work. Again I wil let the pictures speak for themslves.
Members of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force salute after placing coffins of earthquake and tsunami victims at a temporary mass grave site in Higashi-Matsushima, in Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan March 24, 2011. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
from Russell Boyce:
Asia – A week in Pictures March 20, 2011
Japan - after four days of editing pictures from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan I took an hour break to buy some food and get some money in a small shopping centre near the office. As I walked through the busy street, the thought that stuck me was that everything around me is so temporary. The people along the coast of the Miyagi Prefecture were probably going about their daily business, just like I was, when the wall of water swept through their towns wiping their very existence off the face of the earth. Reports of a nuclear cloud heading towards Tokyo where 13 million people live, added to my sense of fear. In my mind, the world had changed forever. I cannot begin to imagine what the people in Miyagi, the rescue workers and the photographers taking the picture are feeling. From our team of photographers covering the story, I have chosen three pictures from each photographer, not an easy task when there are so many great images. Respect to all the teams covering the story and my condolences to the people of Japan. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
A survivor pushes his bicycle through remains of devastated town of Otsuchi March 14, 2011. In the town of Otsuchi in Iwate prefecture, 12,000 out of a population of 15,000 have disappeared following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
A vehicle is half submerged at a crossroad after an earthquake and tsunami in Sendai, northeastern Japan March 12, 2011. Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people. Japan scaled back its tsunami warning for much of the country on Saturday, nearly 24 hours after a massive earthquake struck and set off a succession of tsunami, NHK television said. REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak
Traffic is in chaos as people are forced to walk home between grid locked vehicles in central Tokyo after an earthquake March 11, 2011. The biggest earthquake to hit Japan on record struck the northeast coast on Friday, triggering a 10-metre tsunami that swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships, cars and farm buildings on fire. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
Kudos to the team who have been working hard and my prayers to the people affected by this disaster…~
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Resident Photographers Blog Expert
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The Wall
To the prior commenter: nuclear radiation is the thing that is not welcome in family life, and in many ways Fukushima changed the culture of Japan. The photographer has an ethical obligation to know who this family is, and a personal need to do so. Many assume that a photographer can be dropped into a global crisis, such as a war or a mass evacuation, and somehow not be touched by events. That is not how it works. A photographer is in the events at eye level, not thinking about them in terms of data, quotes and claims of officials, and abstract ideas about “safety.” Selecting and editing the photos the photographer makes contact with his or her subjects a second time, and the images can indeed be haunting. To me this is the image that sums up both Fukushima and the effects of the nuclear crisis — all in the girl’s expression. It is one of the most touching and indeed disturbing news photos I have ever seen.
Note that just because the photographer knows who this is does not mean that the information will be published. Were I this family I would certainly want to hear back.
Sincerely,
Eric Francis
Planet Waves